Simon’s Bitcoin Casino Guide

About Bitcoin gambling and Bitcoin casinos

Before we start discussing Bitcoin gambling in general and specific Bitcoin casinos it’s important to know a little bit about me.

I’m Simon, the owner of Simon’s Online Gambling Blog and I’ve been gambling online for 8 years and I’ve been working with online casinos – mostly Bitcoin casinos – for 3 years.

I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly side of Bitcoin gambling. I decided to share what I know with my visitors.

This guide is the result.

This Bitcoin gambling guide consists of two parts.

Part I.,Bitcoin casino guide – A short summary of the Litecoin and Bitcoin casino(s). I explain why I don’t consider them safe and what led me to this conclusion.

Part II.,Bitcoin gambling guide – This part tells you all you need to know about what’s going on behind the scenes in the Bitcoin gambling industry.

It also gives you all the tools and the know-how to be able to analyze any Bitcoin casino independently. With the help of the tutorial you will be able to decide, whether a Bitcoin casino is SCAM or not ,without having to rely on anonymous strangers on Bitcoin forums (it’s manipulated, more on this below) or Bitcoin gambling blogs (many are fake and are actually owned by Bitcoin casinos, more on this later).

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Bitcoin casino guide

Advantages of Bitcoin casinos over regular casinos

Bitcoin casinos have some advantages over regular casinos, especially for US citizens.

The biggest advantages of Bitcoin casinos over regular online casinos are the following:

Instant payout: regular online casinos usually make you wait 7-10 days (depending on casino and withdrawal method) before you can withdraw your winnings. You can withdraw and deposit instantly at a Bitcoin casino.

New creative ideas: Bitcoin casinos are not bound by regulations of the online gambling industry. This is mostly a bad thing. However, being exempt of the rigid rules that govern online gambling, a Bitcoin casino is free to experiment with new types of games or new creative versions of traditional casino games.

Disadvantages of Bitcoin casinos compared to regular casinos

The disadvantages of playing at a Bitcoin casino far outweigh the advantages.

Here is a summary:

Bitcoin casino operators are hiding their true identity for a reason

lot of scammers

low-quality startups

many hackers

connection with the dark web, money laundering

no regulations means no repercussions (they can just take your money and there is nothing you can do about it, it is well documented, that if a player wins too much their winnings will be seized).

players are vulnerable

Why you shouldn’t play in any Litecoin or Bitcoin casino

If you don’t want to read the whole Bitcoin casino guide here is a brief summary:

– Bitcoin casino have no gambling license ever (means if something happens there is none you can turn too). – Casinos go to great lengths to hide their identities/the company behind them. – Hackers constantly raid Bitcoin casinos and steal player’s personal and sensitive information. – Unprofessional management & one-man casinos. – Bitcoin casinos usually go bankrupt within a year taking all the player’s money with them. – Unethical practices – which would get a regular casino blacklisted – are the norm.

There are many good things, which came out of the Bitcoin gambling community. And there are many bad things as well.

Let’s be impartial.

Let’s look at both sides of the coin; let’s take a look at the good, the bad and the ugly side of Bitcoin gambling. This guide will provide you with all the necessary information to independently verify and asses a Bitcoin casino website’s credentials, safeness and value proposition.

Working in the Bitcoin gambling industry, my experience

Just like any other webmaster, it took me years to break even and to finally be able to make a living online, as a full time, independent webmaster.

In the meantime I worked and helped other aspiring blogs and businesses in their online marketing efforts.

Some of these businesses were Bitcoin gambling ventures.

Actually, quite a lot of them.

I have experience with Bitcoin casinos as a player, as an affiliate partner and as an online marketing professional.

And after working with many Bitcoin gambling websites I have formed an opinion.

An opinion that happens to be largely negative. However, there is hope.

Allow me to explain.

Bitcoin community and Bitcoin gambling essentials

I don’t intend to start from the basics, therefore I assume you know the following:

you understand digital currencies and the way they work,

you have heard of Bitcointalk and you know how important it is for the Bitcoin community,

you know what is the dark web.

The Bitcoin gambling community is best understood by examining it’s defining attributes:

Anonymity –Have you ever been to 4chan /b/?

If not, don’t go there! Trust me.

You are better off not knowing (and seeing) what goes on there.

4chan, and all of its’ boards are the living embodiment of what anonymity inevitably leads to: raw human nature unfiltered, and brutal honesty.

If you have a lot of illusions, a lot naivety about humans and human nature it can be quite shocking. Anonymity is a double edge sword.

Don’t forget the number one rule of being anonymous online:

Nobody is anonymous online by default and people CHOOSE to be anonymous FOR A REASON.Being anonymous is not a fashion statement. People who actively hide their identity do so for a reason

And the second rule of online anonymity:

Don’t trust anyone anonymous.

Bitcoin is anonymous and decentralized – It is used anonymously by people, who like it that way, for a reason.

Always try to figure out what that reason could be, and what it means for you!

People have different reasons to be anonymous. They do not necessarily have a nefarious intent, but they just might. It all depends on the situation and the context.

It’s one thing when people choose to be anonymous, but it’s entirely different ballpark when companies (Bitcoin gambling ventures) go to great lengths to hide their identity and erase every trace of themselves online.

These are not just buzzwords without substance. They are true, and most importantly: they attract entrepreneurs (mostly young, adventurous entrepreneurs with no capital and prior experience, 95.2% of them are men).

This leads to flawed business models and businesses, which only sound good on paper (e.g.: my favourite – Bitcoin snail race ).

Bitcoin snail race might generate great “buzz”. If they are lucky they might even be picked up by a few major news sites, Bitcoin blogs, where it will make a great headline and will be read by thousands.

This will bring in bucket-loads of “untargeted traffic”.

The problem with “untargeted traffic” is that “conversion rate” (visitors turning into players) is horrible.

99.99% of the people will be:

“Bitcoin snail race, HA-HA-HA, look at all those snails, funny!” and less than 0.001% of visitors will be : “Oh, Bitcoin snail race, I have a Bitcoin wallet and alternative sports betting sounds fun. Gotta bet right now!”.

But at least there will be some traffic and a few players in the beginning.

The internet’s attention span is very low and the buzz will be over in a few weeks, tops.

After than the business will rely on “search traffic” from search engines.

The truth is that nobody is searching for “Bitcoin snail races” online.

(They could start an intensive ad campaign at this point, an intensive ad campaign spanning a year. Of course that’s really expensive and that would mean, that they would incur heavy losses during the firs fiscal year. Bitcoin startups are nearly always small-scale startups, lacking any significant capital. So it’s not really an option.)

They might delay the inevitable, and the business might even stay afloat for 6-7 months.

Eventually reality will catch up and the businesses will close down taking their players’ money with them.

This story happens all too often in the world of Bitcoin gambling and Bitcoin casinos.

Decentralization, lack of regulation – Bitcoin gambling (or gambling with Litecoin or any other digital currency) is not recognized as gambling by law enforcement.

Therefore, if a Bitcoin gambling site closes down (because they went bankrupt, or because it was a SCAM all along) there will be a lot of “butt-hurt” people bashing it on Bitcointalk and other Bitcoin forums but nothing will be done.

Because nothing can be done.

The criminals justtake the money they stole and re-brand under a different name (remember, they were anonymous all along) and just invest the money into an even bigger scam, ad infinitum.

That’s why there are so many scammers, because of the lack of repercussion brought about by anonymity.

IT skills – What do you get if you combine anonymity , IT skills and lack of regulations?

Hackers!

And not the white-hat data-security specialist guy, or the gray-hat “discovered this hole in you system, here is a funny LOLcat to replace your homepage, btw. FIX IT!” types. No, these are genuine, black-hat hackers.

Criminals, who destroy lives and businesses.

The Bitcoin world is full of them.

If you rob a Bitcoin casino there is no repercussion, law enforcement won’t care, because Bitcoin is not recognized as a real currency and Bitcoin gambling is not recognized as legal gambling. No wonder bitcoin casinos are popular targets of hacker attacks.

Dark web connection, money laundering – The elephant in the room.

On the dark web you can only pay with Bitcoins.

Have you ever wondered how these Bitcoins rejoin the mainstream economy?

Dark web vendors certainly don’t just collect and store them in their Bitcoin wallet forever.

I’m going to say what many people already knew or have suspected: BITCOIN GAMBLING IS A MONEY LAUNDERING SCHEME!

Bitcoin gambling and the Bitcoin economy is fueled (not solely of course) by the dark web and people associated with the dark web!

This is why Bitcoin casinos – any Bitcoin casino, that pays out your winnings in regular currency not just digital currencies – are not registered in the US.

They could register in the US, but in that case they would have to comply with strict US anti-money laundering laws.

Bitcoin casinos know that a large part of their business is coming from dark web entrepreneurs. They are not necessarily happy about this or even acknowledge it, or even be aware of it. However, it’s a fact.

Online gambling is a great way for these dark web vendors to whitewash their revenue. Undoubtedly, there are other ways to whitewash Bitcoins, but this is definitely one of them.

I hope this will change one day.

Bitcoin gambling and Bitcoin casino market

There is a lot of hype and misinformation surrounding the Bitcoin market. I believe this is what draws in so many inexperienced entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs who should never even start a business.

The truth is, that Bitcoin gambling is a very small slice of the “gambling pie” (the online casino gambling market). Here is a nice and very easy way to check and quantify Bitcoin’s share of the overall, global online casino gambling marketplace (online sports betting excluded for simplicity’s sake). This is simple method anyone can use, anytime.

There are two things you need to know, unless you wish to make a comprehensive and detailed “keyword research” (I’m not going int details about what is a keyword research on this blog):

the biggest search term of the Bitcoin gambling market is “Bitcoin casino”

the biggest search term of the online casino gambling world is “online casino”

/Search term: what people type in Google to get what they want./

You can use Adwords (it’s free) to check the monthly “search volume” (number of people searching for it any given month) and compare them.

Online Bitcoin casino gambling represent 4.8% of the of the global, English speaking, online gambling market, based on this very simple comparison.

If you can get your Bitcoin casino to appear at the top (first 5 search results) in Google – which is no easy feat, requires a lot of work – you will get around 35% of the monthly search volume.

That is 6,600 x 0.35 = 2310 visitors per month from un-paid search traffic (traffic coming from search engines, which you did not pay for).

That’s a pretty sad amount of monthly visitors for a casino. This blog gets more visitors a DAY! And many online casino – regular, FIAT – get more visitors an hour.

If you are thinking:

“There is lite coin, dogecoin etc.. too! What about searches for “dogecoin casino”? What about Bing, Yahoo and other search engines?”

I checked traffic for these keywords. It is insignificant (<100). The fall of Bitcoin exchange rates pretty much destroyed these alternative digital currencies.

The truth is that the Bitcoin gambling market is really small and saturated.

A small, saturated market leads to desperate businesses and desperate tactics, a fight for survival, ethics thrown out the window.

I would advise enthusiastic entrepreneurs to stay away from the Bitcoin gambling market for these reasons. Especially now, with Bitcoin under $300 consistently.

Here are some examples of recent Bitcoin gambling scams to better illustrate all that I have said so far:

Coinbet.cc – Received some media exposure. It was a really big Bitcoin casino (casino games + poker + sports betting and live dealers) to go under.

The casino was plagued by hackers, inexperienced, unqualified managers and the final blow that knocked the casino out (or they closed down on purpose, maybe it was a scam all along?) was a big win by one of the players, the poker player Michael Katz. Either they could not, or did not want to pay out his winnings of around $300,000.

It has been speculated that the casino took $ 100 K worth of player’s deposits with it at the moment’s of it’s closure.

Some of the owners and participants were identified but as it is the case with all Bitcoin scams, no legal actions were taken (or could have been taken, but they didn’t even try).

Bitoomba Bitcoin casino – They first started to steal money from their affiliates and then they started to steal money from their players (some say their games were actually rigged as well, I can not confirm this – for obvious reasons, I have never played in their Bitcoin casino).

The site is removed by now – again, proving the point I made earlier about Bitcoin casinos shutting down after a short time.

EveryDice.com – Another Bitcoin dice site, which went bust. Taking investors’ and players’ money with it. If you went to the site a couple of months back, you could read their version of the story. I didn’t believe a word of it but it’s a good example of the finger-pointing, inner conflicts and “scammers scamming scammers” attitude. An attitude, that is all too common in the Bitcoin gambling community.

Note: this site too, has been taken down by now.

These are just a few of the recent Bitcoin sites to go down, but there are many-many more.

Tutorial: How to tell if a Bitcoincasino is a scam or not

Let me show you how to spot a scam Bitcoin gambling site with this step-by-step tutorial. If you are using these methods you can minimize the chance of you getting ripped off by unscrupulous scammers!

First of all, If you create a website or start a business, then you lose your anonymity.

You can get it back, but you have to invest time and money to get it back. And when it comes to businesses, every dollar spent is an investment, and needs to be justified.

Therefore, it is safe to assume that if a Bitcoin gambling website chooses to become anonymous, they do so for a reason.

Why on earth would a Bitcoin casino – which thrives on advertisements, generated publicity, online marketing – spend money on anonymity, the opposite of publicity? – Just think about this.

I’m not saying, there is always malicious intent behind this anonymity every time.

What I’m saying is that sadly, that’s more often the case, than not.

It’s definitely true, that the less anonymous a Bitcoin casino, the more you can trust it.

Here is how you should inspect a Bitcoin casino website – using Bitoomba (a known scam Bitcoin casino site) as an example – to avoid Bitcoin casino scams and to identify dishonest Bitcoin casinos who go to great lengths to hide their identity.

2.,Check “Registrant Name:” and “Admin name” , if it’s Whois Agent, Whois protection service etc., they are using “Whois protection”

3., Next thing, you should check is domain age. “Creation date”

More than 90% of new Bitcoin gambling ventures go out of business in less than a year.

I strongly advise against playing in any Bitcoin casino that hasn’t been in operation for at least a year.

/It must be noted, that many Bitcoin casinos buy old, aged domains and domain age in those cases means nothing. If that’s the case you have to use Waybackmachine.com and check the earliest cache of the casino on the domain to verify the date./

They promote every Bitcoin casino, which pay them for the promotion and you won’t find negative reviews on any of them (and they still promote a lot of closed-down Bitcoin casinos or known scammers. They just don’t care, they don’t really update their websites).

OR! The Bitcoin gambling blog is actually run by one of the Bitcoin casinos or bookmakers. /You can easily apply the methods we are discussing here to verify Bitcoin gambling blogs./

Even tough Bitcointalk is an anonymous forum, where anyone can say anything, I could easily generate 5 fake accounts and have fake discussions about how great a particular Bitcoin casino is.

Still, opinions here are far more diverse and it will give you a better idea about a Bitcoin casino, than fake review sites.

5., Check the website for any mention of the owner’s name or the company behind the casino: In Bitoomba’s case there is absolutely nothing, no mention of the owner or the company (if there is a company?).

It’s a bad sign.

6., Contact the casino before you deposit: make sure to try the contact the casino before you deposit.

If a bitcoin casino does not respond to your messages it means one or the combination of the following:

they are not professionals

it’s a scam

it’s abandoned

they will also not respond if you have a problem

don’t expect to be able to withdraw your winnings

If you are not sure whether a Bitcoin, Litecoin or any alternative, digital currency accepting casino/bookmaker/poker room/dice parlor is safe or not, just drop me a line in the comments below and I will do my best to apply every little trick I know to determine whether they are safe or not.

Don’t be like this!

There is a possibility, that Bitcoin gambling will be safer for the players in the not too distant future. The UK’s new gambling legislation, for example seem to allow it’s licensees to accept Bitcoins, if they declare it in their application. However, to my knowledge, no Bitcoin casino has been licensed so far.

Earlier this year Derby Jackpot, a legitimately licensed online horse race betting platform in the US state of Illinois started to legally accept wagers in Bitcoin. This is the first legally licensed US online gambling site to accept Bitcoin bets.

However, the Bitcoin gambling industry in general is still saturated with unfair, shady actors and players should be very very careful in trusting any Bitcoin casino with their money. The best bet for now, is indeed not to trust any of them.

The legal status of Bitcoin gambling and Bitcoin casinos around the world

Bitcoin casinos and other Bitcoin gambling operators often claim, that they can operate legally even in countries with illegal online gambling. The legality of Bitcoin casinos is much more complicated than that and generally, it’s closer to the actual truth, that where online gambling is illegal, so is Bitcoin gambling. Just think about the fact, that almost no online Bitcoin casino operates under a legit license.

Below I put together a table – based on my own research – about the legal status of Bitcoin gambling in the world, by countries.

The legal status of Bitcoin gambling and Bitcoin casinos around the world

Country

Bitcoin gambling

Afghanistan

illegal, players are not prosecuted

Albania

legal

Algeria

illegal

American Samoa

illegal

Andorra

not regulated

Angola

not regulated

Antigua and Barbuda

licensed

Argentina

unknown

Armenia

licensed

Aruba

licensed

Australia

legal

Austria

not specifically regulated

Azerbaijan

complicated

Bahamas

illegal, players are not prosecuted

Bahrain

illegal, players are not prosecuted

Bangladesh

illegal

Barbados

not regulated

Belarus

illegal

Belgium

licensed

Belize

licensed

Benin

not regulated

Bermuda

illegal

Bhutan

illegal

Bolivia

illegal

Bosnia and Herzegovina

licensed

Botswana

not regulated

Brazil

illegal, players are not prosecuted

Brunei

illegal, players are prosecuted

Bulgaria

licensed

Burkina Faso

not regulated

Burundi

unregulated

Cambodia

illegal, players are prosecuted

Cameroon

not regulated

Canada

legal

Cape Verde

?

Cayman Islands

illegal

Central African Republic

?

Chad

?

Channel Islands

legal

Chile

not regulated

China

illegal

Colombia

illegal but not prosecuted

Comoros

legal, operators require license

Cook Islands

unknown, probably not regulated

Costa Rica

illegal

Croatia

operator must have a license

Cuba

illegal

Curacao

operator must have license

Cyprus

illegal

Czech Republic

illegal but not prosecuted

Denmark

not regulated

Djibouti

not regulated

Dominica

not regulated?

Dominican Republic

not regulated

Democratic Republic of the Congo

not regulated

Ecuador

not regulated

Egypt

not regulated

El Salvador

not regulated

Equatorial Guinea

?

Eritrea

?

Estonia

operator must have a license

Ethiopia

not regulated

Falkland Islands

operator must have a license

Faroe Islands

not regulated

Fiji

operator must have license

Finland

operator must have license

France

operator must have license

French Guiana

operator must have license

French Polynesia

operator must have license

Gabon

not regulated

Gambia

illegal

Georgia

operator must have a license

Germany

illegal but players are not prosecuted

Ghana

operator must have a license

Gibraltar

licensed

Greece

Greenland

not regulated

Grenada

not regulated

Guadeloupe

operator must have a license

Guam

not regulated

Guatemala

not regulated

Guinea

legal

Guinea-Bissau

?

Guyana

not regulated

Haiti

not regulated

Honduras

not regulated

Hong Kong

illegal but not prosecuted

Hungary

operator must have a license

Iceland

illegal

India

illegal but players are not prosecuted

Indonesia

illegal

Iran

illegal

Iraq

illegal

Ireland

operator must have a license

Isle of Man

legal

Israel

illegal but not prosecuted

Italy

operator must have a license

Ivory Coast

not regulated

Jamaica

illegal but not prosecuted

Japan

illegal but not prosecuted

Jordan

illegal but not prosecuted

Kazakhstan

not regulated

Kenya

state monopoly

Kiribati

not regulated

Kosovo

not regulated

Kuwait

illegal and prosecuted

Kyrgyzstan

illegal

Laos

illegal

Latvia

operator must have a license

Lebanon

illegal

Lesotho

not regulated

Liberia

operator must have a license

Libya

illegal

Liechtenstein

not regulated

Lithuania

illegal but not prosecuted

Luxembourg

illegal but not prosecuted

Macau

not regulated

Macedonia

not regulated

Madagascar

not regulated

Malawi

not regulated

Malaysia

illegal but not prosecuted

Maldives

illegal

Mali

?

Malta

operator must have a license

Martinique

operator must have a license

Mauritania

illegal

Mauritius

operator must have a license

Mayotte

operator must have a license

Mexico

illegal but not prosecuted

Micronesia

not regulated

Moldova

operator must have a license

Monaco

not regulated

Mongolia

not regulated

Montenegro

operator must have a license

Morocco

illegal

Mozambique

operators must have a license

Myanmar

illegal but not prosecuted

Namibia

not regulated

Nauru

not regulated

Nepal

illegal but not prosecuted

Netherlands

illegal but not prosecuted

New Caledonia

operator must have a license

New Zealand

illegal

Nicaragua

not regulated

Niger

not regulated

Nigeria

not regulated

North Korea

illegal and prosecuted

Northern Mariana Islands

legal and regulated in Nevada, Delaware, New Jersey and us Virgin Islands, not regulated in every other state

Norway

state monopoly, currently no state-run bitcoin casino

Oman

illegal

Pakistan

illegal

Palau

illegal but not prosecuted

Panama

operators must have a license

Papua New Guinea

operators must have a license

Paraguay

illegal but not prosecuted

Peru

operators must have a license

Philippines

operators must have a license

Poland

illegal and not recommended

Portugal

operators must have a license

Puerto Rico

legal and regulated in Nevada, Delaware, New Jersey and in the US Virgin Islands, not regulated in every other state

Qatar

illegal but not prosecuted

Reunion Island

operator must have a license

Romania

operators must have a license

Russia

illegal but not prosecuted

Rwanda

license required

Saint Barthelemy

illegal but not prosecuted

Saint Kitts and Nevis

operator must have a license

Saint Lucia

not regulated

Saint Martin

operator must have a license

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

not regulated

Samoa

illegal

San Marino

operator must have an Italian license

Sao Tome and Principe

not regulated

Saudi Arabia

illegal but not prosecuted

Senegal

license required

Serbia

needs license

Seychelles

needs license

Sierra Leone

not regulated

Singapore

illegal and players are prosecuted

Slovakia

operators need a license

Slovenia

operator must have a license

Solomon Islands

operator must have a valid license issued by Australia

Somalia

illegal but players are not prosecuted

South Africa

illegal but players are not prosecuted

South Korea

illegal but players are not prosecuted

South Sudan

illegal but not prosecuted

Spain

operators require a license

Sri Lanka

not regulated

Sudan

illegal but not prosecuted

Suriname

not regulated

Swaziland

not regulated

Sweden

legal, state monopoly

Switzerland

illegal but players are not prosecuted

Syria

illegal and players are prosecuted

Taiwan

illegal and players are prosecuted

Tajikistan

illegal

Tanzania

operators must have a license

Thailand

illegal, players are not prosecuted

Timor-Leste

illegal but not prosecuted

Togo

not regulated

Tonga

not regulated

Trinidad and Tobago

not regulated

Tunisia

illegal, players are not prosecuted

Turkey

illegal

Turkmenistan

illegal

Turks and Caicos

not regulated

Tuvalu

illegal, players are not prosecuted

Uganda

licensed

Ukraine

illegal, players are not prosecuted

United Arab Emirates

illegal and players are prosecuted

United Kingdom

licensed

United States

the only licensed online gambling platform taking Bitcoins is in Illinois, Nevada does not allow it, the rest of the states is undetermined

A revealing, comprehensive guide to Bitcoin gambling and Bitcoin casinos with a step-by-step tutorial on how to avoid bitcoin casino scams.
Information about the bitcoin casino gambling market included as well.

16 Responses

What you say about bitcoin gambling review sites is true in most cases but definitely not true about the Bitcoin Betting Guide. I am proud to say we have never included a brand that has turned out to be a scam, this is not due to good luck, we were offered money to includ coinbet.cc and bitomba and most of the other scams that have come and gone, with our experiance and knolage we could smel they were fishy and would not deal with them

We do criticize brands on the site. This is from our Casino Bitcoin Review

“Casino Bitcoins product is just not that good and the highest ranking bitoin sportsbooks and casinos on this site blow them out of the water.”

The reason we don’t have many negative reviews is because there are hundreds and hundreds of shit sites out there that deserve negative reviews, we don’t even have time to review and include all the good sites we want to at the moment, we arent going to waste time reviewing bad sites that will probably not exist in 6 months anyway. The best way we can steer people clear of the ever changing list of bad sites is to point them the the good sites that we test extensively.

It is such a great article that you wrote on bitcoin gambling topic and it seems that you have many experiences and insight.

I am involved in few bitcoin projects and I started off as a bitcoin miner reseller (www.OasisMiner.com).

I have a favor to ask you. Could you please check out our new bitcoin project for multiple bitcoin related services and there’re also casino, multi-player betting games and I want to hear your honest opinion whether it has potential or not.

I know you’re negative in bitcoin gambling sites but I would appreciate your feedback since you got a lot of knowledge and experience in this field.

We are still working on some features but the site works. You can register by clicking ‘Join’ and ‘Game Start’ button will show after signing in. The service menu is under construction for other service like sending, selling bitcoins.

Thank you for your insights. Although I note is now November and you last post appears to be July 2014. We too had considered a global lottery for bitcoin players and registered bitcoin super lottery but may well shelve plans after your review it does seem the money in bitcoin is merely investing in the long term possible upside of the currency as many experienced and smart money people are doing.

first of all fortune jack is horrible you shouldn’t trust them. Secondly is there any protection for us against scam casinos? I , along with several other people, are owed considerable amounts of money from betcoin. Tm and they just ignore and refuse to pay and apparently they used to be a scam company that reopened under this name to try and mask their slimey Practices. Because its Bitcoin are we screwed or can we take legal action?

But you are screwed because the online casino was never really a licensed online casino and the people behind it are anonymous. They don’t give gambling licenses to bitcoin online casinos (and gambling licensing organizations also don’t prosecute them).

It’s a legal grey area with lots of anonymous transactions and most people involved are anonymous. The legal system is just not equipped to handle this.

I doubt that older lawyers (pre-digital era, 40+ y old) would even know what to do in this case.

It would be interesting if someone would finally try to sue. But sue what? Sue who? You see the problem….

First of all great article Simon. Must say it’s well written and to the point I even linked my article: ”Definitive Guide To Bitcoin Casinos” to yours.

I’ve just started venturing into the ”cloack and dagger world” of using Bitcon as a crypto-currency to wager online. From what I’ve read and seen to date a lot of operators are jumping onto this bandwagon now. As such many uneducated players are also getting burnt in the process since they’re not doing proper due diligence before they sign up. If I can chime in here this is the way I see it. As James pointed out there are some reputable Bitcoin operators but they’re far and few in between at this stage.

Rather wager at a site that’s licensed in a reputable jurisdiction such as Alderney, Gibraltar, Isle of Man, Curacao or Malta-BitStarz Casino comes to mind. Traditional online casinos are now offering Bitcoin as a deposit method and most of them are above board.

I guess it’s a good point of departure and shrouded in anonimity like most Bitcoin only operators. don’t claim to be expert but I’ve been in the industry for more than a decade now.

hello i recently won over $200,000.00 on vegascasino.io and they are giving me the runaround about withdrawing. they told me i must complete a KYC review. (know your customer) and it should take no less than 24hrs. well 9 days later and they still need more time! i sent= copy of drivers license, proof of address and snapshot of ip address verification. they have no phone number or address that i can find anywhere and its getting really frustrating. they do or did have live chat available 24/7 but all day today for some reason its been unavailable. im starting to think this is a scam. i just want the original $350.00 i deposited when playing. also if they dont turn out to be legit can you give me a few places i should post about them, ideas of what to do? im very new to this. just learned what a bitcoin was 3 months ago.

Yeah. It seems like you are the victim of a scam. They probably don’t have $200 K, or they are not willing to pay. (This is why I don’t recommend playing in Bitcoin only casinos.) They are not genuine gambling operations, most of them don’t even have a gambling license. Vegascasino.io does not have a gambling licence, therefore there is nothing you can do, and you can be sure this is not a legit casino (actually it is illegal to operate an online casino without a gambling license, but this is also offshore and the identity of the owners is very well hidden, this is the reason they only accept Bitcoin). Always avoid casinos without a gambling license!

If you post about your experience there it will destroy them. I’m not joking, people exposed cheating Bitcoin casinos on that forum, and it led to their closure. (if it does not get enough attention first, then post multiple times. It’s a big forum, it might get overlooked the first time.)

You should also write here: GPWA forum Casinomeister

There is not much point containing Bitcoin gambling blogs, 99% of them publish fake reviews sadly. Wizard of Odds was a genuine place of reviews too, but it has been purchased 2 years ago and it has gone downhill since, so there is not much point contacting them either.

Your article is really great, but i think its out of date. In Hungary you can not do online gambling, because its against the law. I know because i have asked the National Gaming Board. So sadly i must disable every gambling services on my website.

The 1million dollar question is now: Which land/country can operate unlicensed bitcoin/ethereum/etc online gamble whats fit to the current law?

However, a new legislation is currently being developed (for 1,5 years now…), which will legalize online gambling, but one of the the requirements will be that you must be a casino owner with a valid gambling license from the government. So, unless you are Andy Vajna, that won’t help you much :).

“The 1million dollar question is now: Which land/country can operate unlicensed bitcoin/ethereum/etc online gamble whats fit to the current law?”

Actually, the million dollar question is: Is Bitcoin gambling even gambling? The answer to this depends on the country, where you are registered.

To answer your original question:“Which land/country can operate unlicensed bitcoin/ethereum/etc online gamble whats fit to the current law?”

I need to know, from which countries you will be accepting players from. I see your website is available in English so I assume eventually you will be interested in the UK gambling market. And if you eventually want to enter the UK gambling market, then your options are pretty limited. Only gambling licenses, which were “whitelisted” by the UK Gambling Commision are eligible for a licence in the UK:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitelisted_gambling_jurisdictions

So, it’s pretty clear what you have to do, contact each whitelisted license issuer and ask them about Bitcoin gambling. They will be able to help you. (You will also need an offshore company first. Hungarian companies will not be able to get a license from these places.)

My site is currently in 5 languages, English, Russian, Hungarian, German, French. The last two is really scanty. I have Russian visitors at most, the second is Poland. What do you think, when i rent in Netherlands an VPS and run from there this unlicensed service? If you can help me i can add some advertise for you on my website, but please let me speak in private! I have added you on skype.